Finances

The can only be done once one of you has petitioned for divorce and once there is a decree of divorce in place. This is usually the first divorce order which is called the decree nisi.

1. Maintenance Order. This is an Order that your spouse should make a regular income payment.
2. An adjustment of property ownership order. This could mean that a house you owned with your partner is transferred into your sole name.
3. Lump sum payment order. This is typically a one off payment.
4. Pension Sharing Order. This offers that you should have a share in your spouse's future pension or that they should have a share in your pension.

In most cases the Court no longer has power to make Child Maintenance orders and this issue is usually dealt with either by agreement or by applying to the Child Support Agency.

If you are unable to agree with your partner how the marital assets should be divided, then the Court has unlimited discretion to determine this. This can mean that both parties are left feeling hard done by and for this reason it is preferable to reach an agreement with your spouse if this is possible to do. This can be done with the help of a mediator.

The Court considers a range of factors in deciding what financial Order to make. The Court will firstly consider all the circumstances of your case, but will consider the welfare of any children under 18 first of all. The other factors that the Court considers are as follows

1. Both spouses financial resources including current income and future earning capacity.
2. Each spouses needs including their obligations and responsibilities now and in the future.
3. The family's standard of living before the marriage broke down.
4. The ages of each spouse and the duration of the marriage.
5. Any physical or mental disability of either party.
6. The contributions that each spouse has made to the marriage. Generally the spouse who has cared for the children and looked after the house is regarded as having made an equal contribution to the marriage as the spouse who has worked outside the home.
7. The conduct of both parties. Generally speaking, negative conduct must be quite severe to be considered by the Court.

Case law is important in this area and is often high profile, perhaps because of the huge sums of money that are often involved and also because opinion is often polarised in this area. In the 1980s and 1990s the focus was mostly on each spouse's needs, but following the land mark case of White v White [2000] UKHL 54 emphasis was placed on fairness and the importance of achieving a "clean break" if this was at all possible. It was determined in this case that the court should start by considering whether there should be an equal split of the assets, although there may be a reason that this should not be the case.

Recent high profile cases have included Miller v Miller; McFarlane v McFarlane [2006] UKHL 24, in which Mrs Miller obtained a settlement of £5 million despite the fact the marriage had been of short duration. This established that entitlement was not necessarily determined by the length of the marriage. Recently in the case of Charman v Charman [2006] EWHC 1879 (Fam), Mrs Charman was awarded the sum of £48 million from her insurance magnate husband. This did not represent an equal division of assets as the Court recognised that Mr Charman had made a special contribution to the marital pot, but nevertheless represented the highest ever payout to a spouse.

Although high profile cases can establish import legal principles and offer a fascinating insight to how the other half live, in reality they have only limited impact on settlements in cases where there is barely enough money to go round. In these cases the reality is that the Court by necessity will have to focus on the parties' needs coupled with their resources to try to come to the fairest decision.

Do remember that both you and your spouse have an absolute duty both to each other and to the Court to disclose full details of your financial position so that the Court can come to a decision. It is therefore important that you give your solicitor full details of your financial affairs.

Rented Accommodation

If your property is rented then whether the property is in one spouse's sole name or in joint names you will have a right to remain there at least until the marriage is dissolved. If you are unable to decide who remains in the property long term then this is also an issue that can be determined by the Judge.

You must consider carefully whether it is in your interest to move out of your rented accommodation as you may not only lose the right to live there but also lose the right to be rehoused by the council, if the council considers that you have made yourself intentionally homeless. The correct step that should be taken isn for an application to be made to transfer the property into one spouse's sole name, which would avoid prejudicing the housing position of the other spouse.